The edible part of the cashew is born in the top of the kidney-shaped part of the pseudo-fruit, about 25 mm long, from greenish gray to yellowish brown (if the selection of the color of white, may be bleached, do not buy), the shell is hard, covered with seed kernels, sweet as honey, contains a high calorie content, and its source of calories is mainly fat, followed by carbohydrates and proteins.
Cashew nuts are native to the Americas, a shrub or small tree, 4-10 meters high; branchlets yellow-brown, glabrous or nearly glabrous. Leaves leathery, obovate, 8-14 centimeters long, 6-8.5 centimeters wide, apex rounded, flat-truncated or slightly concave, base broadly cuneate, entire, glabrous on both surfaces, lateral veins about 12 pairs, lateral veins and reticulate veins raised on both surfaces; petiole 1-1.5 centimeters long.
The panicle of cashews is broad, much branched, arranged in a corymb, 10-20 cm long, many-flowered and crowded, densely rust-colored puberulent; bracts ovate-lanceolate, 5-10 mm long, abaxially rust-colored puberulent; flowers yellow, polygamous, sessile or shortly pedicellate; calyx outside densely rust-colored puberulent, lobes ovate-lanceolate, apex acute, ca. 4 mm long, ca. 1.5 mm wide; petals linear-lanceolate, 7-9 mm long, ca. 1.2 mm wide, outside rust-colored puberulent, inside sparsely hairy or subglabrous, revolute at anthesis; stamens 7-10, usually only 1 developed, 8-9 mm long, 5-6 mm in bisexual flowers, sterile stamens shorter (3-4 mm long), filaments more or less connate at base, anthers small, ovoid; ovary obovoid, ca. 2 mm long, glabrous, style subulate, 4-5 mm long.
Drupe reniform, compressed on both sides, 2-2.5 centimeters long, about 1.5 centimeters wide, fruit base supported by fleshy pear-shaped or turbinate-shaped pseudocarp, pseudocarp 3-7 centimeters long, 4-5 centimeters wide at its widest point, purplish-red at maturity; seeds reniform, 1.5-2 centimeters long, about 1 centimeter wide.